Action movies ended up being the weakest group of the five. Originally, I included them with the Science-Fiction movies, but most sci-fi ones were better than the pure action films. However, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire is the exception because it’s a very powerful adaptation that is just as good thematically as it is visually. Rush and The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug also deserve mentions.

Comedy

1) Prince Avalanche
2) The World’s End
3) The Way, Way Back
4) Don Jon
5) This is the End

Comedies always seem very up and down. Although I found nine comedies I considered good, I had to shed a bunch that weren’t. Prince Avalanche is a bit of a sleeper pick because it was a limited release that didn’t get a whole lot of notoriety. However, it’s also the movie that has grown on me the most this year. The World’s End was the next closest because it was both smart and outrageously funny.

Drama

1) Before Midnight
2) The Spectacular Now
3) Mud
4) 12 Years a Slave
5) Dallas Buyers Club

Honorable Mentions: A Hijacking, Blue Caprice, Captain Phillips, Fruitvale Station, The Hunt, Lee Daniels’ The Butler, My Brother the Devil, The Place Beyond the Pines, Still Mine, and Sunlight Jr.

Misses: American Hustle, August: Osage County, Blue Jasmine, Enough Said, Frances Ha, Her, Philomena, Saving Mr. Banks, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, Short Term 12, and The Wolf of Wall Street.

Like always, dramas dominate the year. Number 1 through 5 are all great movies with my personal preference obviously going to the beautifully-written Before Midnight and The Spectacular Now. The big deal is all the misses because American Hustle just released and the Christmas Day lineup are packed. This list probably has a lot of change coming its way.

Thriller

1) Trance
2) Stoker
3) Prisoners
4) Side Effects
5) The East

Honorable Mentions: Out of the Furnace, Shadow Dancer, and V/H/S/2

Misses: The Conjuring

My thriller list may be a lot different than aggregate sites because both Trance and Stoker were more middle-of-the-road movies according to them. However, I thought both were enticing, exciting, and well, thrilling. The twists and turns may feel a little manipulative, but isn’t that kind of the point to these movies?

Like I mentioned earlier, the Science-Fiction movies sure seemed to kick butt this year. It felt like all the big blockbusters (that were good) were sci-fi movies. Although the list was very succinct (it was either good or bad), all the movies outmatched the similar Action-Adventure genre…minus The Hunger Games. Gravity was my personal favorite because it was visually original, which seems to be one of the biggest knocks on this genre. As for non-originals, Star Trek Into Darkness may have released ages ago, but it still stands up as one of the bests of the year.

Jordan, who currently resides in Seattle, WA, has slowly become a film fanatic over the past couple of years. He attributes his love for film to the smash hit THE DARK KNIGHT which has created an (un)healthy obsession with both Christopher Nolan and the Batman franchise. Although he appreciates all genres of film, his favorite movies are typically psychological thrillers, with an emphasis on non-traditional narratives.